Okay Type's Alright Sans, designed by Jackson Cavanaugh, offers a family suitable for a multitude of hierarchy needs with 16 font weights from Extra Thin to Ultra Black. The typeface is as light on your wallet as it is on your magazine spread. I’ll admit that at first I wasn't sold on the idea of this face for use as a true workhorse, I mean, can a solidly-performing typeface cost only $300?

One thing’s for sure, it has a nice balance between minimal and classic. It has just enough future-forward style for a high-tech feature, but clean enough to include in a corporate brand identity. Alright Sans is beautiful and is easy to read. Credit this to a large x-height and generous proportions. It is a subtle upgrade to Gotham, more contemporary looking and has more personality. It looks great large, small, thin and heavy. The weights are very even all the way across. But good looks aren’t everything.

When I lay in my usual block of copy and switched it to Alright Sans, with surprise I found that it handles more like a $900 typeface. It sets nicely, and quickly. The characters are not as wide as Gotham’s so it’s easy to set in narrow measures. The spacing between each character is set correctly, so there’s no need to go back and kern too much when setting body copy.

Screen-Shot-2013-06-06-at-11.28.45-PM

It includes over 1,000 glyphs, and enough accents to support over 100 languages. Old style numerals are the default, saving a ton of find-and-replace time. The old style numerals don’t go too high above the x-height or way too low below the baseline.

The Baseline: Alright Sans scores versatility points for its large family, handling points for its default kerning and old-style numerals, beauty points for its gorgeous letterforms, and impressive wallet points for its value. Overall, it’s very well designed.

TypeEd is an educational program that helps designers implement better typography quickly and efficiently.TypeEd is the educational division of Ramp Creative, the design partnership of Michael Stinson & Rachel Elnar.